Google Sites is an easy way to make up-to-date information accessible to your colleagues within SLU, and when necessary, to the public. People can work together on a Site to add videos, presentations, calendars, and free-form text and image content. Creating a collaborative site is as easy as editing a document, and you always control who has access, whether it's just yourself, your team, or your whole organization. You can even publish Sites to the world. You can create or update a Google Site at any computer with internet access.

Please note: Google Docs and Google Sites are not HIPAA or FERPA compliant.

Log in to sites.slu.edu, and create a new site by selecting the Create new site link:

You'll need to fill in the following information fields to create your page:

Site name - When creating a site under SLU's Google Sites, your site name cannot conflict with an existing site, or an existing Google Apps username (unless it is your own). The name you assign will determine the URL where the site is located. The Your site will be located at this URL: field is automatically generated based on the Site name field.

Site categories (optional) - Insert top-line information on how your site should be categorized within SLU's Google sites (this will help people find the site if it has wider sharing permissions).

Site description (optional) - Describe what content will be located within the site's page.

Collaborate with - Define the permission levels for your site. The site can be made viewable by everyone at slu.edu, only people you specify (e-mail addresses will need to be entered) or you can make the site completely public. (Note: The permission levels can be changed later, please see question 3 for more information.)

Site theme - Choose a basic color scheme or background theme for your site. This will affect all sub-pages under your main page. (Note: You can change or modify the theme once a site is created by selecting the More actions button and selecting Manage site. Settings for themes and colors/fonts can be changed from here.)

Web Page -- A Web page is an unstructured page where you can enter text, images, tables, and embed spreadsheets, presentations, videos, and more. The Web Page has standard formatting controls like bold, italic, underline, font control, text color, and text highlighting. You can create bulleted lists, numbered lists, and easily link to other pages in your site. You can attach documents from your hard drive to the bottom of the page, and allow other site collaborators to comment on your pages.

Because Google Sites is built on a wiki foundation, all versions of your document are saved. This means you can always go back to early versions of the document and compare changes between different versions.

Page subscribers are notified when the page is updated.

Announcements -- An announcement page is a page which makes it easy for an individual or group to post chronological information like news, status updates, or notable events. It can be used to post organizational news, post project updates, announce new releases, post interesting links from around the Web, as a simple blog, and more.

Page subscribers are notified of new posts, and updates on existing posts.

File Cabinet -- A File Cabinet allows you to manage documents from your hard drive and organize them into folders. This can be used to organize common documents in one place. Version history is stored for documents so you can always return to an earlier version.

Page subscribers are notified of new files, updated files, and delete files.

List -- List pages allow you to easily track lists of information. You can choose from a list of templates or configure your own custom columns. Items can be easily added, updated, and removed.

Page subscribers are notified of list additions, deletions, and updates.

Can I create a main site but give different access levels to the sub-pages within that site?

No. Currently you are not able to assign different access levels to sub-pages within a site. This means that if a user has access to the site, they will be able to see all of the pages and sub-pages within that site.

Please note: You can attach documents to a site that have different access permissions than your site. When you do this, the permission levels from the documents override the site permissions. If you have not "shared" a document with someone but you post it to a site that they can view, they will still not be able to open that document.

Google Sites help is always a click away! For more help with creating your first Google Site, please click here. Assistance with more advanced features is available at google.com/support/sites or here.

The IT Service Desk (314-977-4000) is also available to assist with SLU Google Sites questions Monday-Friday, 7 a.m.-7 p.m.

Instructor-led Google Sites classes are available on campus each month for staff and faculty. To view the class schedule and register, please click here (you will be prompted to log in with your SLU username and password).